


Bidding War

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Black Markets, Canon-Typical Violence, Friends to Enemies, Gen, MacGuffins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 02:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15985919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Amanda Evert had an invite to a very exclusive, very illegal auction, where a certain piece of history caught her eye.  Unfortunately, someone she was very familiar with showed up uninvited to the same auction.  The two pass time before bidding starts and things inevitably go south with conversation.





	Bidding War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SophieAyase](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophieAyase/gifts).



The servant set the plate on the table, with a silver pot and two cups already filled with steaming amber-colored liquid down on the table.  Amanda scrutinized her glass, the sprig of green garnishing it.  She glanced across the table, at the woman taking a sip.

“It’s green tea with mint.  It’s good.” Lara Croft offered.  “Moroccan recipe.”

It _smelled_ minty.  Amanda held her glass in her left hand and tentatively took a sip as well.  She wasn’t much for tea, although the added sugar and cooling mint were nice additions.  Tea was a better choice than the wine their host had been offering as well; she needed to stay alert and at the top of her game.  She gripped the Wraith Stone tightly in her right hand, under the table.  Around them, people wandered around the well-manicured lawn in the shadow of an old antebellum plantation, perusing dubiously-sourced antiquities.

They had to look ridiculous, sitting down for tea.  The goth biker chick and the classy British duchess in a slinky black dress made for a contrasting pair.  Last they’d seen each other was Nepal.  _Would killing me make us even_? Lara had asked her back then.  And no, not by a long shot, that account would never be settled.  But that hardly meant Amanda ever wanted to see that smug, perfect face again, especially on a _business_ trip.

This auction was a purely black-market affair.  You could find plenty of questionable artifacts in the “legitimate” auction houses, of course.  But what this ad hoc auction was selling, at a steep premium was very hot merchandise.  Some people would kill for a pretty enough bauble; Amanda and Lara had both killed for much more than just monetary value.  And somebody had already killed for everything on sale here.

Amanda had gotten in with only a little difficulty.  One of the men at the door, a hulking bruiser who was at least double her weight in muscle, refused to believe she was invited.  The black leather, tattoos, and choker did clash a bit with the formalwear of the other guests, she would admit.  Still, as she _insisted_ to be let in, the host of the evening, a Mister White, had stepped in and welcomed her in.  A friend of James Rutland was a friend of his, he had said.  Brief patdown for weapons, and the guards had completely ignored that little metallic pendant she had around her neck.

Mister White was quite intrigued by the necklace, and asked her all sorts of questions about it.  She told him nothing, but had the feeling he knew more about the Wraith Stone than he was letting on.  She would have to keep her guard up here.

Amanda came to antiquities auctions as a sort of fishing trip.  Some of the other bidders spent years honing their knowledge of particular cultures or even particular pieces.  She herself didn’t need to do all that research; she could _feel_ when something was of value.  Other bidders valued a piece's rarity or price, she was interested in power.  The kinds of power that few believed in, and fewer still had ever actual _reason_ to so.

And as she perused the wares, she couldn’t help but notice that the silver hand _reeked_ of power.

It lay under glass, palm outstretched towards the sky, display case flanked by two hardasses every bit as big as the one who tried to keep her off of the estate.  She only had a plaque to go on, something from a Neolithic burial site in Ireland.  That meant nothing to her, although she was sure some cursory digging when she had access to the internet would reveal some horrible things happening to the discoverer of the dig site.  This auction was the kind of place where every piece up for bidding had a bloody history; both ancient and recent.

She was busy doing calculations in her head, at what price would the money to buy the hand justify the bridges she’d burn by stealing it?  She barely knew Mister White, but assuming he and Rutland ran in similar circles, he likely had powerful friends.  She kept debating in her head until she heard a murmur back from the entrance, then noticed one of the guards pressing fingers to his earpiece.  He turned to his friend and mouthed something that could have been “she’s here”, and both straightened up.  The other muttered, loud enough to hear “wasn’t invited”.

The list of people who could find out about this little sale was small.  The list of people who knew and had the gall to show up uninvited was smaller still.  Amanda immediately knew who they were talking about.

Amanda tensed, her hand instinctively coiling around the tiny, insignificant metal pendant around her neck.  Somewhere to her left, the glasses on a tray of wine shattered.  That drew more attention.  Amanda half-turned to see her there, dressed to impress in a floor-length, backless gown.  She wove through the crowd like a prim and proper lady, but Amanda, and Mister White’s guards, noticed the way she was surveying the crowd as she did so, looking at the manor house for probable sniper nests.  The way she walked, trailing a hand on a low stonework fence, judging its value as cover.

When Mister White, a man of indeterminate age and a British accent, had intercepted her to announce his surprise at such a distinguished guest, Lara made small talk.  Amanda couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she knew behind each of their grins Lara and White were sorting out plans to kill the other.

She had found herself a small table with two chairs to wait at while other potential bidders continued to peruse the stock.  She observed the other bidders, and continued to do so even after Lara took a seat across from her—feigning indifference despite that Lara was undoubtedly the biggest threat in the room.  She waved off an attempt to pass her wine—despite it all she was a lightweight and right now she needed to be firing on all cylinders.  Rutland used to joke about it—she had a direct line to a terrifying otherworldly creature and she couldn’t handle some vino.  She tried not to think about the Entity or Rutland, because that made her want to drink.

Especially now that she and their killer were drinking mint tea together.  “What are you doing here, Lara?”

“Window shopping.” Lara replied, pretending to smile pleasantly.  “I take it you’re doing the same?”

Amanda returned an insincere smile.  “How are things back in Abbingdon, Lady Croft?  I take it you’re butler and Zip are doing well?  How is Alister, anyways—he hasn’t had any papers published lately.”

Amanda’s smile turned a little bit genuine when Lara’s morphed into a scowl.  She half expected the archaeologist to flip table and leap for her throat, at least until one of the bruisers positioned himself nearby and asked if there was a problem.  Lara shot him a sideways glance, then sweetly asked if he could send one of the waitstaff.

The man paused for a long while before turning and walking away.  “How did you end up explaining his death to the cops, anyways?  Shot while your mansion burned?”

“The truth; the person who shot him also burned down my house.” Lara said, flatly.  She drew in a deep breath, than donned a too-sweet fake smile.  “And before I say something about Rutland rotting in an unmarked grave in Peru… let’s stop this.”

 _That_ was too far.  Lights flickered, and the table shook—several tables shook, actually.  The crowd was murmuring, obviously unaware of just what was going on.  Lara kept her eyes locked on Amanda, that stiff upper lip unwavering.  Through clenched teeth, Amanda asked “Stop _what_ , Lara?”

“We keep doing this…” Lara said, leaning back in her chair.  “…we’re going to kill each other sooner or later.  Honestly, I’m… fine… with that; I mean, I would prefer not to kill you, but if it comes down to that, we both know how far you and I will go.”

“To the ends of the Earth.” Amanda said, studying Lara.  She looked _tired_ somehow. 

“And beyond.” Lara nodded.  They had both reached the end of the line.  Avalon, Helheim, they’d found what they were looking for.  And it was… disappointing to say the least.  A lake of poison and a big machine to kill humanity—which Lara broke—was all Amanda had seen.  “If we kill each other, so be it.  I figured I might as well make an attempt to bury the hatchet.  After this… .”

Lara trailed off at a loss for words, at least the right ones.  A mix of that cockiness to bolster the implied threat and something that might have been regret crossed her features.  Amanda sipped her tea and glared at Lara suspiciously.  She was saying what Amanda was thinking. “What brought this on?”

“Remember the first person you killed?” Lara said, looking down at the table, a nonanswer that still piqued her curiosity.  Amanda scrunched her face—it was an antiques dealer in Belize who had something she wanted; unless Lara was going to argue it was all their friends that Lara had abandoned when Amanda found the stone.  “Mine was… a few years ago.  The first business I had with Natla, actually.  Sometimes I still have nightmares about it.”

“And?”

“Do you know how many people I’ve killed without having nightmares?” Lara said, looking at one of her hands.  Amanda herself remembered just skimming the casualty reports from the hired guns she sent against Lara—Amanda was a murderer, but Lara was a goddamn abattoir.  “It got easier—a lot easier.  I lost count.  Most of them were self defense, but still... I killed many, many people since that one day."

“And in Avalon… Helheim, whatever…”  Amanda trailed off herself. Lara had shot her mother.  Well, her mother’s mindless, shambling corpse.  Thirty years and two generations of Croft family obsession over a husk of a woman.

“When I killed the the thrall… my mother.” Lara said.  Amanda’s brow furrowed.  Lara had shot and killed her the mindless, shambling corpse of her mother, then had a moment, then carried on like nothing had happened.  “It took a long time for that to sink in—I shot my _mother_.”

“Who was a zombie.”  Amanda wasn’t sure why she offered that fact.  Maybe it was the role she played in Lady Croft’s disappearance, in a roundabout manner?  Or at least, the idea Lara still blamed her for it.

“Who was the reason for…everything.” Lara said, pausing for a long while before gesturing to herself.  “My father dedicated his life to finding Avalon in order to find her, and I did the same, and at the end of the day, there was nothing of her left to find but a body.”

“So what you’re saying it, none of this was worth it?”  All those bodies, all the death and mayhem, and all Lara got out of it was mommy to stack atop the corpse pile.  Amanda could _begrudgingly_ accept the fact she had precious little to show for all her plans. There had been a certain annoyance ready to throw a wrench into everything, so despite all her resources and power, Natla failed.  Lara?  She kept winning, and at the end of it all, she lost.  At that moment a waiter showed up and Lara politely asked for a fresh pot of tea, this one was too cold. Amanda repeated her question; considering what she found, did Lara waste every moment she'd been searching the truth?

“No.” That was resolute.  Lara seemed to have braced herself.

“No?”

“If nothing else, I found the truth—that would be worth it on its own.  I saw places that were said to exist purely in Legend.  And… I l did learn what happened to my mother—even if I would’ve preferred something else” Lara said, turning attention back to Amanda.  “And if I recall, being there kind of prevented the world from ending.”

That much was true.  They were silent for a long time after that.

“So… you’re proposing a truce?”  Amanda asked, circling the conversation back to the beginning. She fucking hated Lara for abandoning her in Peru, for killing Rutland and the Entity, for just being there to get in her way.  But her attempts at payback always failed; continuing to antagonize Croft would get neither of them anywhere.  Taking a deep breath, she muttered.  “Just stay out of my way, and I won’t kill you.”

Lara gave a sad smile.  “Unfortunately, I think we both have our eye on the same piece.”

“The hand?” Amanda asked, frowning when Lara nodded.  So much for _détente_.  “What do you want with it?”

“Personally, nothing.  I just have a friend in INTERPOL whose brother was one of the archaeologists to discover it, in an passage grave in Ireland that should not have existed.  Then the research team suffered a severe accident involving the site collapsing on them” Lara said. Amanda shuddered despite herself--she could relate.  “The only apparent survivor was a professor with high gambling debts, who simply had vanished, along with the hand.  The trail led to his corpse, and then to this auction.”

So Lara was here as a favor.  INTERPOL didn’t have the authority to arrest anyone—only ask local authorities to do so.  And Amanda had the feeling that Mister White had paid off the right people to ensure that was never a problem.  But if all hell broke loose and an ill-gotten gain was stolen… then that was entirely not INTERPOL overstepping its bounds.  “And why would there be a silver hand in a stone age Irish tomb?”

Lara spoke authoritatively, like she could give the page numbers for this tale in each of her favorite translations of old Celtic mythology if asked.  She probably could.  “Nuada was the twice-over king of the Irish Pantheon.  He was also known as Airgeadlámh,  the Silverhand, because he lost his arm in battle and initially had to abdicate to the tyrannical Bres—until Nuada had a replacement hand made of silver.”

“So that might be the hand of a god?” It suddenly made sense why she felt so much power coming from it.  The possibilities of it were staggering.  Amanda looked at Lara, and then to the case where the silver hand was.  She was _never_ going to win a bidding war against Lara Croft.

She thumbed the wraithstone.

“And you know Alister's theories about interconnected myths?” Lara asked, and Amanda nodded.  Lara had always been more knowledgeable on the topic than she was.  Amanda had an affinity for the arcane that gave her a unique expertise regarding relics, but Lara still was better with the histories, the myths, and where they intersected.  She lectured; the British had a similar deity, Nodens.  When the Romans conquered Britain, they considered Nodens an aspect of Mars—god of war.  Some Germanic peoples began to associate Mars with Tyr around the second century.

“Tyr is Norse God, right?” Considering that Lara had found _Mjolnir_ and clubbed an Atlantean Goddess to death with it, Amanda was very interested in Norse mythology.

“Tyr lost his hand to Fenrisulf.” Lara offered, nodded.  “And Fenrir was one of Loki’s children, alongside Jormungandr—The World Serpent.” 

Amanda’s interest was piqued.  It was a bit tenuous; an Irish god which was maybe a British god which was maybe a Roman god which was maybe a Norse god.  The particular Irish god and Norse god had both lost a hand.  And Amanda knew the World Serpent was very real in a way, so maybe the wolf whose bottom jaw scraped the ground and upper jaw reached the sky did as well.

This was highly interesting.  Amanda almost wanted to ask Lara what the chain binding the wolf was again, because that had always been an interesting story, and if they were going down that rabbit hole… then she remembered that Lara and here interests were the exact opposite, in that Amanda wanted the hand, and Lara did as well.

They sat in silence, not making eye contact.  Each was a problem the other would have to deal with, but at the moment, they were content to look past one another.  The awkward silence was a blessing in disguise, because without conversation to distract her, Amanda noticed the guards were gathering—they were easy to spot against the guests; they all wore formalwear, but the ones built like linebackers on off-the-rack suits stuck out as muscle.

The guards where forming up, all of them shooting glances at the table where Amanda and Lara were sitting.  There were a dozen reasons for it, most of them Lara’s fault.  She had a reputation, and it was almost certain that Mister White was aware she was going to steal his ill gotten gains from him.  Of course, Amanda had been fraternizing with Lara for a long time. 

Whatever they were forming up for was Lara’s fault.

She herself cast a glance over her shoulder at the guards, then went back to her tea.  As nonchalantly as if she was mentioning the weather, she said “Snipers on the roof.  I won’t be able to deal with them.”

“You didn’t bring your guns?”  Amanda asked tensing up.  Even with the stone, she had her limits; she wasn’t exactly looking forward to dealing with all of these gunmen solo.  One of them was approaching their table, shouting something in a Texan drawl.  About a stone. 

“Looks like they want to add another piece to Mister White’s collection.” Lara chided, looking at the reflection in the polished teapot.  The man had drawn his handgun from a shoulder holster.  Several of his comrades, hanging back, had also done so.  The crowd was murmuring, then silent.

“You didn’t bring your guns?”

“Too much security to sneak them in.  I was planning on excusing myself to get them, but if I have to borrow one until then…” Lara said nonchalantly, pouring herself another piping hot cup of tea.  She leaned over and whispered.  “Now again, two snipers, at your four o’clock.”

“Neither of you move.”  Amanda bit her tongue as the man loomed over Lara’s left shoulder the two of them, coming up with a pointed comment taking a back seat to planning on how to fight her way out of this.  Her eye’s met Lara’s, and the Englishwoman blinked.  The Texan glared at her and said “Ms. Evert, hand over the…”

That’s as far as he got as Lara whipped her arm over her head, throwing the contents of her glass in his face.  The man shrieked as Lara sprang to her feet and grappled him; keeping his body between herself and the other guards.  Amanda quickly turned, and in the split second she saw two men on the roof, she _tugged_ , feeling something cold surge through her.  Both of the men on the roof pitched forward and plummeted. 

At her feet, Lara wrestled the man’s gun from his grasp and smashed butt of it against his nose.  She and Amanda scrambled forward for cover as the rest of the guards started to opened up, diving behind a stone wall.  Guests were screaming, Mister White was shouting, the guards were shooting.  Keeping her head down, Amanda glanced at Lara, back pressed against the wall.

She gripped the Wraith Stone tightly.  She popped her head out of cover for a split second, enough to get the relative positions of the guards and some of the display cases.  Taking a deep breath, she reached out.  The gunfire ceased for as metal and glass was thrown around, with some screaming.  Lara leapt out of cover, opening fire.

The fight didn’t last long enough after that.  Between flying glass and metal and Lara’s gunfire, the guards stood no chance.  Both of them had added to their bodycount here. 

“Issue with her billing information.” Lara explained to the huddled crowd as she strolled out, head on a swivel, stopping at a few of the guards to pick up some spare magazines and another pistol.  Amanda walked next to her, heading for the display case where the hand was.  Lara saw her and picked up her pace.  Amanda was so angry she didn’t feel the _lack_ of energy she had noticed earlier until they had reached the case.

The thing was empty.  Mister White, or someone else, had taken the opportunity to remove it while they were dealing with the distraction.

In the distance they both heard an engine rev.  Big, probably a truck, not too fast.  If they hurried, they could probably hijack something faster that had been parked in front of the house.

Lara and Amanda glanced at one another.  It would be so easy to just kill her right now, get the hand.  Its not like Lara didn’t deserve it.  Hell she said it herself; they were going to end up killing one another one of these days, why not make it today?  She felt her hairs stand on end as Lara just turned and started for the gate.

It was stupid to waste the opportunity but she broke into a run herself.  They’d chase after the fleeing truck, some stupid race for an artifact, and then they’d fight over it.  And then one would get it and the other would go off to lick her wounds.  Running into Lara Croft again was not in Amanda’s plans, but she could feel that would happen, over and over.  They’d keep at it.  Killing Lara right now would be a hell of a lot smarter than chasing after her, chasing after Mister White.

But she chased anyways.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this. Amanda is pretty fun as a villain, and trying to write Lara through her POV was an interesting challenge.


End file.
